Can Online Role-Play Improve Students’ Writing?

It’s OLLie again, wishing a big “Hello!” to all of you wonderful readers out there in Online Land.  Welcome again to the OLLieBlog.
 
Recently, I’ve been reintroducing myself to some old (to me) websites that encourage online role/story play along with more scholarly writing.  In the reintroduction, I've noticed how many members of both sites are students and wondered if being a part of such a site would help build a student’s ability and confidence in his or her writing.   The answer I found was a definitive “maybe.”  But first, let me introduce you to the two websites I’m referring to.
 
AncientWorlds is specifically designed as an online community for lovers of ancient history and has been around (in one form or another) for over ten years now.  I personally discovered it through a link in Archeology Today back when I was doing graduate work in Art History.  (It was love at first log-in.)  There are sections of the site dedicated to roll play as well as factual discussion of (almost) all things historical.  The site is broken down into eight “worlds”—Rome, Hellas, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Celtia, Germania, The Orient and The Americas.  Each world has its own “governing body” of volunteers, along with family units.  Upon signing up, the user selects among a long list of surnames, which places him/her into a “world” and within a family or clan.  The result is a feeling of belonging to the site on multiple levels.  To sign up is free and with the free membership, you get a home site that you can decorate (within reason).  Newbies do have a post limit (to prevent spammers), but once you’ve logged in enough times, the limit is raised.  You can find people of all ages and backgrounds in AS—the love of history is what binds them together, either to discuss or “play like” they’re in the midst of worlds long ago.  Plusses for those wanting to write better—plenty of feedback if you ask for it, writing competitions, and groups dedicated to the art and craft of writing (such as Quill and Parchment).
 
Pan Historia came into being shortly after AncientWorld’s forerunner, AncientSites, went off the web.  With the mass exodus of AncientSites users looking for a new home to write to their hearts’ content, Pan Historia became an instant success.  Pan Historia primary purpose is fictional role play (their motto is “We don’t just write the stories, we live them”) and its site is divided up into genres—action, contemporary, fantasy, history, horror, science fiction, western, reference and other—these are then broken down into “novels.”  The novels are given ratings by their creators—content can range from a “rated G” to “nc-17.”  Periodically, the members vote and the best posts/authors are awarded “Pandames” (basically virtual Oscar trophies, but these look like Panda bears).  Like AncientWorlds, the site has its own “governing body” made up primarily of volunteers.  With the free membership, one gets up to three characters with home site areas to decorate for each.  These characters can then be used in the novels on the site.  Plusses for those wanting to learn to write better—again, plenty of feedback for those asking for it, site wide competitions and awards that encourage good writing/storytelling, and online writers’ workshops.
 
Sounds intriguing, right?  But the question is, can using sites such as these help students become better writers?  As far as I’m concerned, it all falls back into the hands of the individual students.  Yes, the sites are extremely interesting and there are tons of writing opportunities to get into on either.  That said, the individual still has to take advantage of the opportunities.  With a quick scan of the threads on either PH or AW, you’ll come across numerous posts that were haphazardly put together with little concern for content, presentation, grammar or style.  However, you’ll also see those which have been written meticulously, sometimes even with color coding or graphics to depict the different characters "speaking" within the same post. 
 
Beyond simple grammar, punctuation and style, there’s another level of writing that we should look at when it comes to online role play--the interactive element.  How often in schools do we treat writing as a team effort?  Hardly at all, in my experience (unless you include peer reviews and editing).  Yet, in real life work situations, students may encounter times that call for their writing to be genuinely collaborative.  According to M. A. Syverson’s article “Role-playing Simulations Improve Writing” this is exactly what role play offers writing students.  Syverson states that successful components of role playing that relate to writing include:  the issue, the players,the context, the rules, the enactment and the outcome.  By participating in sites such as Pan Historia and AncientWorlds, writers suddenly become part of a community larger than themselves and they must coordinate with others in order to get the story told.  In many cases this includes plotting out the story beforehand, organizing the order of posts and peer reviewing/editing posts, all in the effort to make the thread as enjoyable to readers as possible.  By encouraging interaction such as this, role play sites can definitely improve the process in a student’s writing, which should then lead to a better product.
 
Again, though, I would add that it is all up to the student to get involved.
 
For teachers who are interested in investigating the idea further, I would suggest that you sign up for each of the sites mentioned and look around—get your feet wet, so to speak.  See if you think either site is right for your students.  Both sites, I think, are more geared for older students (high school and up).  I don’t know that I would make it a graded exercise, but just a “playing” project to take some of the phobia and stress away from writing and make it more fun.
 
If you’d like something with a bit more control (such as in the case of a graded assignment), why not set up your own blog or wiki with role/story play guidelines?  Both Blogger and Wikispaces offer free accounts that are very easy to set up.  In each, you (as the administrator) can choose who gets to participate in the story.  It would also be easy in either to include a rubric or guidelines of what you’re looking for in the posts (if you’re going to be grading the project).  The tradeoff is that you’ll be more limited with the amount of feedback your students can get.  With the more open sites, such as PanHistoria and AncientWorlds, members from all over the world can read and give feedback on the writing.  With a blog or wiki, it would take time to build up such an audience, so this type of feedback would be limited. 
 
For further reading about online role playing through posts and threads, Wikipedia has a couple of introductory articles, packed with info and lingo—Play by Post Role Playing Games and Online Text-based Role Playing Games.
 
Happy Webbing!!
 
P.S.—If you do decide to drop into PH or AW, look for someone named Juniper Rose (PH) or Aevalle Baoisgne (AW) in the comm panel and say hello!